Kevin Arthur

Friday, May 9, 2014

Interesting take on the RFI/RFP process in which the tables are turned by Wexley School for Girls from Agency Spy.

Seattle
full-service agency Wexley School for Girls is turning the RFI and RFP
process on its head, or, in their words, “reversing the traditional RFI
and RFP process in which brands look for agencies to handle their
advertising via a complex and costly rigmarole of vetting, chemistry
checks and basically pitting agencies against one another to compete for
an account.” Today the agency has issued the first-ever Reverse Request
for Information or RRFI, calling on brands to become the agency’s next
client, tapping New York search consultancy Madam to help in the
process.

“We believe it’s as important for the agency to choose its next
clients as carefully and rigorously as a client chooses its next
agency,” reads the RRFI. “We are looking for a client that is
respectful, fun to be around and one that enjoys partnering with their
agency not dictating to them… We see ourselves as an asset not a vendor.
And we see clients as partners not clients,” the Wexley’s RRFI goes on.
Applicants are asked to define their brand and where they want to take
it in 2-3 years, what brands they admire, their marketing budget, their
true “risk tolerance” for creativity, their proudest moment, a
definition of their ideal relationship with an advertising agency, and
“Would you rather ride 1 horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?” —
you know, all the tough questions.

“Today’s more interactive and collaborative way of working
between agency and client makes it more critical than ever to get the
chemistry right,” explains Michael Lee,
founder of Madam. “The agency has to feel good about the relationship
beyond an annual fee. It has every right to only want to work
with clients it wants to work with. Wexley and Madam both believe there
is a better, more innovative, more creative approach to agency client
relationships, because the way both now work together demands it.”

Monday, April 14, 2014

Creative Review Shortlists Are No Longer All That Short

Traditionally,
a finalist in a creative review has had to beat just a couple of other
shops to get the business. Recently, though, the odds of winning have
gotten much longer.

The finalists that emerged in reviews for CVS, the Legacy anti-tobacco campaign and TripAdvisor
faced four or five competitors. “That’s frustrating,” said a leader at
one of six shops that pitched TripAdvisor, adding, “It’s hard to stay
motivated.”

With as little as a 17 percent chance of winning, some may wonder why
agencies in those reviews even bothered with the long and expensive
pitch process. Then again, the market isn’t exactly awash with
opportunities right now, and those three brands collectively spend about
$200 million in media each year.

What’s making these shortlists so long? Agency leaders, search
consultants and a marketing chief point to three factors: market
conditions, the number of decision makers involved and when the brand
last searched for a new agency.

First and foremost, it’s a buyer’s market. For agencies under pressure
to grow, the prospects, again, are few. And if you’re a marketer, why
not seek more ideas, even if it means a longer process? After all, the
agencies foot the bill.

“The calculation is that the agency business is hurting, so they’ll get more participation,” explained Robert Birge, CMO at Kayak.com. “Clients often want to get a range of perspective,” added Ken Robinson of Ark Advisors in New York.

Of course, more ideas don’t necessarily yield better results,
particularly with finalists working off the same brief. Meanwhile, a key
goal of any review is to get a sense of what it’s like to work with an
agency, which, naturally, is harder with a longer roster of finalists.

“I would imagine, for a client, it becomes very difficult to
distinguish some of the agencies,” said Matt Weiss, CMO at Havas
Worldwide.

Then, there’s the factor of how many decision makers. Generally, more
“cooks” lead to more shops, as each marketing leader puts forth his or
her individual preferences.

At TripAdvisor, for example, CMO Barbara Messing and vp of brand
strategy Anne Bologna collectively have spent decades in advertising,
and Bologna is a former agency exec. The point is, they know a lot of
players, and in that context, a sextet of finalists doesn’t seem so
outrageous.

Finally, those marketers that haven’t done a search in a while may want
to meet with more shops to get a feel for the current environment.

Before hiring 72andSunny
in February, Legacy had worked with Arnold for 13 years. Four other
agencies pitched that business. Likewise, BBDO beat four other agencies
to land CVS last month.

TripAdvisor appears headed to Johannes Leonardo, though a company rep said the search was still ongoing.

Whether the trend of longer shortlists will continue is debatable. What
is clear is that as long as agencies outnumber marketers, marketers
will have the leverage to ask for more.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Some reasons why we like to use open source software (thanks Firstborn tech guys):

Code is available to peer review for quality, security
audits, bugs, etc. Fixing these issues is dramatically quicker on open source
projects. It’s in the whole community’s interest to work together to make a
project better and more resilient.

Code is
available to extend or fix by our team or the general community if needed.

No licensing
costs for utilizing the technology. For server technology this can make a
pretty big difference if you need to deploy on multiple production servers.

If a
technology becomes discontinued, the larger community can continue patching /
supporting it as opposed to being at the mercy of the technology owner.

Knowledge
sharing, stand on the shoulders of giants instead of reinventing the wheel
(this is especially true for libraries and frameworks). People spend a lot of
time working on solutions and abstractions that you can use for free.

Support is
generally easier because of source code visibility, large online community and
documentation. A lot of larger open source projects have foundations /
consulting services to offer support to big companies if they want to pay for
it. If your pockets are deep enough you can get official support for MySQL,
RedHat, etc. from the creators/maintainers.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

When evaluating which agency they should hire, marketers often ask if the prospective agency has any experience in their particular industry. While somewhat relevant, it's misleading to base your decision in whole or in part on that criteria. One the strengths of Firstborn, the agency I work for, is the ability to become brand experts at the start of each engagement through a careful and thorough analysis of the consumers we're talking to. Therefore, if you examine our portfolio you'll find that we don't specialize in one particular industry. So while it's certainly valid to have somewhat of a comfort zone knowing that your potential agency has a history in the industry, the ability to connect the dots by understanding that an agency's capabilities can be carried through any vertical, is even more important.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Here's a lesson in getting rights to assets that you use in a project. As reported in AdFreak an Illinois gun manufacturer used an image of Michelangelo's David in an ad holding one of their weapons (it's huge, and I'm not talking about David) causing the Italian Culture Ministry to issue a warning to retract the ad since technically the government owns the statue. Never take for granted the use of an image even if the subject is something very well known or common place.

Monday, March 10, 2014

4. What are you looking for in a response? Knowing what's expected as part of the pitch process will help alleviate any confusion later down the road. Most RFP's ask for some type of approach, ballpark timing and costs, case study samples, etc. but when ideas are requested in the form of comp designs/visuals, the agency will need to assign a dedicated team to respond appropriately.

5. How many agencies? Getting the lay of the land is important in terms of evaluating whether an agency proceeds with the RFP process or not. It's a lot different situation if the RFP is going out to 20 agencies as opposed to 4 - 5.

6. What is the budget for the assignment? Ah yes, the very uncomfortable topic of money. This is key to an agency in determining whether we move forward or not. Even a ballpark range is always helpful.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

1. Who are you? Having as much background about the marketer is very helpful to agencies, even if the subject is a well known brand. We may be familiar with your product/service but hearing how you see yourself is just as important as knowing the basic facts.

2. The Why. What is the problem you're trying to solve and what are you looking for? Just listing out a scope of work isn't enough. We need the motivating factors that have caused you to search for an agency that can assist in coming up with solutions to your challenges.

3. KPI's. What do you see as a measure of success? Knowing the end goal is crucial to an agency in crafting their response to the RFP.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

While this article by Phil Johnson on writing the creative brief is focused mainly on putting together an internal document within an agency, I think it has some lessons to be learned for marketers on constructing a better brief to prospective agencies during the RFP process.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

If the scandal involving the closure of toll lanes for the George Washington Bridge isn't enough proof, here's another example of why you should be careful about what you write in an email (or in this case LinkedIn